Mathieu Laverdière

Follows Simon, who must deal with the disappointment of two impossible loves: a passionate but destructive crush on Oliver and a distant and cold relationship with his mother Claire, who has just moved back in after a 15-year absence.

After a difficult separation, Serge Jr. takes his daughter Lily, 9, on a truck ride across Canada. They head to Alberta and its legendary Badlands World’s Best Truck Rodeo, a race Lily and him have been dreaming about. On the road, under his daughter’s increasingly worried gaze, Serge will eventually need to face the music.

A professor of philosophy teaches lessons to his awakened students. One day, one of his students decides to put his lessons into practice, and she goes on a journey that shakes her deepest convictions.

Maxime is a miner with a troubled past. After an explosion at his mine, Maxime attempts to find redemption by saving his fellow miners.

Over the last 25 years, the Montreal post-rock band Godspeed You! Black Emperor has released seven albums and presented visually extraordinary shows around the world. At State’s End is their latest show, captured at the majestic Cinéma Impérial. It features six 16 mm projectors playing images in a loop to accompany the music from the band’s latest album. Part documentary, part experimental film, At State’s End! is a unique auditory and visual experience.

In an ever-expanding but nondescript North American city, Christophe, a middle-aged businessman, unexpectedly encounters Micha, a Russian acrobat recovering from an injury, while house-hunting. An instant attraction is quickly consummated and they embark on a torrid affair that helps each of them cope with their respective trials. A provocative, poignant drama about intimacy in an age of anonymity.

As a civil war shakes the Quebec province of Canada, Valerie is the sole survivor of a mass execution where her boyfriend is killed. Years later, she’s in a close relationship with her new partner, Gabriel. At the Long Term Care Center where she works as an orderly, she befriends Jeanne, an erudite and funny woman, dealing with an important physical handicap. Mixing realism and worrying strangeness, The Laugh presents a humane exploration of the survivor’s syndrome, the grieving process, the distance of time, the power of love, and the joy of being alive.

A photographer sets off toward a mysterious forest to find Boychuk, witness and victim of the Great Fire that swept through Northern Ontario at the turn of the 20th century. But before she arrives, she learns that Boychuck has just perished. Survivors of the long-ago fire, Tom and Charlie, two elderly men who have chosen to live out their last days in the woods, are introduced to Marie Desneige, whose 60 year institutionalization has only fueled her passion for life. Meanwhile, the photographer is discovering that Boychuck had been a painter, whose life’s work had been entirely inspired by the Great Fire. The story immerses us in a historical drama while captivating us with the strange lives of these men of the forest. Three men who, in choosing freedom above all else, made a deal with death.

The Third World War is on the horizon. Despite attempts at nuclear deterrence, the threat of atomic bombings between North Korea and the United States is bringing the world's population back into a Cold War-like climate. In the small town of Baie-St-Paul (Québec, Canada), Pier-Luc is afraid: afraid of dying, of course, but, above all, afraid of dying before he could make love for the first time. With his buddies, Hubert and Samuel, he goes through "the summer of last chances" and takes drastic measures in order to lose his virginity - Before we explode.

8-year-old Eva and her father go on a Montreal-Mexico road trip aboard an 18-wheeler.

The Seven Last Words sounds out the experiential states and rituals particular to humanity, based on seven themes expressed in an oratorio: forgiveness, hope, relation, abandonment, distress, triumph, and life after the death.

JP lives with his brother Vincent, his mother Joe and his girlfriend Mel in a small appartement of Verdun. Constantly walking a tightrope, JP tries to maintain a proper balance between the numerous needs of his family of which he feels responsible for, the collecting job he is doing with his brother and his involvements in his uncle’s drug cartel who he sees as a father figure.

In 1944, an Allied spy must find and execute a Berlin scientist who discovered the way to build an atomic bomb. Things get complicated when memories of love and quantum mechanics get intertwined in the chase.

Otherworldly frequencies and textured, fluctuating images beautifully visualize the distress of people who suffer from electromagnetic hypersensitivity, and who must live in exile from cities in order to find solitude from the noise.

The reality of addiction in a tough-minded docudrama set in the bleak milieu of hustlers and junkies in Montreal.

Gabrielle is a young woman with Williams syndrome who has a contagious joie de vivre and an exceptional musical gift. Since she met her boyfriend Martin, at the recreation centre where they are choir members, they have been inseparable. However, because they are "different," their loved ones are fearful of their relationship. As the choir prepare for an important music festival, Gabrielle does everything she can to gain her independence. As determined as she is, Gabrielle must still confront other people's prejudices as well as her own limitations in the hope of experiencing a love far from the "ordinary".

Clara and Nikolai meet at a sweat-soaked rave and end their night at his apartment. The first part of the film is an erotic and candid portrait of their lovemaking. When Clara tries to sneak out without saying goodbye, this typical hookup takes an unexpected turn...

The movements are simple, but the body struggles to follow.

A nightmarish accident that leads to an elderly man’s death one night after getting drunk with his best friend Yves. Neither chooses to confess just yet. Yves, the brasher member of the duo, succeeds in living on with his life, but Gabriel, more shy and honest, feels the guilt choking him as days turn into weeks and weeks become months...

The story of Catherine, who, after her violent husband puts her life in serious danger one night, decides to run away with her son and start a new life under a fresh identity.

Driven by an image which will not leave him, Philémon takes a room at the Hôtel de la Mer. This unseemly boarding house contains a «cinema for the blind«, where the interior drama of the residents is secretly projected. Philémon slips, step by step, into a mute dream, where he attemps to lose sight of himself.

An intimate and unflinching look over 12 months at the hardscrabble lives of hustlers in downtown Montreal.

Pierre and Elisabeth, a couple in their thirties, move with their baby into a cottage on a lake for the summer. The setting is idyllic, and the couple’s happiness seems within reach. Every day, Pierre goes to work in the city while Elisabeth rehearses for an upcoming voice recital. Despite the benevolent presence of her mother-in-law who lives in the neighbouring house, the young woman feels isolated and overwhelmed in her new role as a mother. Her entourage is concerned, but no one fully grasps the extent of Elisabeth’s distress. Muted violence soon takes hold and tightens its grip.

Exquisitely filmed in black-and-white, this experimental narrative follows four friends on a road trip as they discover the complicated arena of unseen desire that arises when ecstasy and sexuality mix.

William is constantly shooting video journals of his life to have as souvenirs for himself. Feeling the end of his relationship with Médéric, his young lover, William spends two days camping with him, taking advantage of the situation by filming the trip and their time spent with another young gay couple. The camera never stops shooting, even when Médéric decides to get it on with another guy in a tent. As Canada's first Dogme95 film, the story is shot on location, with natural lighting and live sound, the camera is hand-held and all superficial elements are forbidden. Yet somehow, in spite of these harsh restrictions during the filmmaking process, the result is warm and beautiful.

Dive is an urban fairy tale about a self-destructive man who can't feel anything. From the moment he sets eyes on a mysterious young woman, something inside him stirs. Unbeknownst to him, she is part of the White Eye community, a marginalized group of hyper-sensitive beings inhabiting the same world as humans. When her true identity is revealed, his destructive nature reaches its peak as he contemplates a drastic escape from his melancholy.